Evaluation in Nature Conservation Decision-making

Roome, Nigel

doi:10.1017/s0376892900014260

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Evaluation of natural areas involves both subjective and objective factors which are not easily separated (Roome 1984). Conservation is based on values and premises which are often inherent in the evaluation process (see Ploeg and Vlijm 1978, Ehrenfield 1976, Livingston 1981.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of criteria for evaluating natural areas

Smith

Theberge

1986

Environmental Management

191

104

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ABSTRACT/Methods for evaluating natural areas have evolved in the last couple of decades to assess the importance of natural areas for the purposes of land-use planning, environmental impact assessment, and planning protected areas. Criteria used for evaluation vary and generally fall into three categories: ecological, or abiotic and biotic; cultural; and planning and management. Abiotic and biotic criteria are reviewed here in terms of three questions for each criterion: What is it--what are the definitions used in the ecological and environmental management literature? Why use it--what are the reasons behind its use? How has it been used--what is the state-of-the-art in assessing the criterion? Cultural criteria are discussed more generally in terms of the commonly used frameworks and the concept of significance. Planning and management criteria are generally related to either the need for management action or feasibility of effective management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of criteria for evaluating natural areas

Smith

Theberge

1986

Environmental Management

191

104

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“…Ever since the earliest studies in that field, scientists have attempted to enhance the theoretical definition of the criteria and to provide a rationale for using particular criteria and for guiding the criteria assessment [1,2,15,16,17,18,19,20]. However, there is no methodology that is accepted as a standard for performing ecological evaluation.…”

Section: Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One common problem is the lack of a clear statement of the objectives of the evaluation, as pointed out in references [15] and [20]. As a consequence, scientific criteria concerning the inherent biological value of a site are mixed up with criteria related to the services provided by that site or with management considerations.…”

Section: Shortcomings In Current Practice and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological evaluation of land

Geneletti¹

2007

Int. J. SDP

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The ecological evaluation of land aims at providing information that can be used to support decision making in nature conservation. It can be seen as the link between the science of ecology and the practice of land management. This paper presents a review of the approaches proposed in the literature to perform ecological evaluation, focusing in particular on the different objectives and criteria, as well as on the way in which they are assessed and on the use of relevant indicators. In addition, the paper proposes a survey on the shortcomings found in current applications. The main problems affecting the practice of ecological evaluation concern the structuring of the evaluation framework: objectives are often poorly defined and not clearly linked to the relevant criteria. In turn, the criteria show problems of correlation and are seldom assessed by means of explicit indicators. This clouds the overall results of the evaluation and undermines their practical use in planning-related procedures.

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“…The evaluation of natural areas, or conservation evaluation, has become widespread in land use planning, environmental impact assessment, and planning for protected areas (van der Ploeg and Vlijm 1978, Margules and Usher 1981, Goldsmith 1983, Roome 1984, Usher 1986, Wathern and others 1986. Its purpose is to identify the most ecologically valuable natural areas so planning and management practices can be applied so as to maintain the areas' values.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating natural areas using multiple criteria: Theory and practice

Smith

Theberge

1987

Environmental Management

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/ Evaluating natural areas involves making measurements for a series of criteria and deciding which areas are most significant based on these measurements. We review the basic theory of measurement and its application to assessing criteria in 20 different conservation evaluation studies. Different types of models exist to assess the overall significance of natural areas based on multiple criteria. A brief description is presented of these "multicriteria evaluation models" and the underlying theory. The assumptions of these models are outlined as are the types of information that are appropriate to each. We then examine how a final overall ranking is derived in the 20 studies. None explicitly stated the model used and few noted the assumptions involved. Based on theory and current practice, a number of principles are presented to guide the development of evaluation methods. We conclude that evaluation methods should not be allowed to cloud important issues or conceal value judgements. Furthermore, the assumptions of any evaluation method should be clearly stated and rationalized in terms of the data and areas being compared.

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Evaluation in Nature Conservation Decision-making

Cited by 17 publications

References 12 publications

A review of criteria for evaluating natural areas

A review of criteria for evaluating natural areas

Ecological evaluation of land

Evaluating natural areas using multiple criteria: Theory and practice

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